Homegrown Electric Car Can Go the Distance: Govt

Indonesian scientists have unveiled an electric car that they claim can travel 150 kilometers on a single charge, further than most electric city cars available today.

Two prototypes of the car were rolled out on Thursday at the National Monument (Monas) Park in Central Jakarta by researchers from the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

“This car is fueled entirely by electricity and is not a hybrid vehicle,” said Agus Hoetman, an adviser to Research and Technology Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta.

“We are currently testing it for urban use,” he said, adding that the car was particularly suited for the stop-start driving pattern in a congested city environment.

“This car saves energy because there are no parts in the engine that need to keep moving when the car is stationary during a traffic jam. That’s different from gasoline-fueled cars,” he said.

Agus said the car had a range of up to 150 kilometers on a single charge, further than the 60-145 kilometers currently available from electric cars with a top speed of less than 100 kilometers an hour.

He said that in a recent test, the researchers almost managed to complete a round trip from Jakarta to Bandung on a single charge. The distance each way is about 130 kilometers.

Hatta previously said the government was earmarking Rp 100 billion ($10.6 million) for the development of an Indonesian-built electric car by four state universities. He said the universities were expected to present their designs soon, before production could begin sometime in 2014.

The minister also said that LIPI had been allocated Rp 1.2 trillion to develop an electric minibus capable of carrying up to 16 passengers.

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